Deceased Battery - Dead before it's Time

[DRC]

I bought a new Challenger when they first came out which came with one of those new fangled Lipo (Or whatever) batteries. I did used the tank until last week as I've been busy proving the the world that I am one of the world's worst air brush users.

Having sprayed everything all the colours under the sun I decided to unbow the Chally and give it a go. Surely there must be something wrong? I charged the battery using the charger included, it charged for about ten minutes and then the light turned to green (charged). I should be so lucky! It was flatter the a witch's chest!

So, this morning I gave it another go, using the same charger I plugged the it in, the charging light glowed red and then after five or so minutes turned green. Not falling for that again I have left it for nine hours. Is it charged? Not a bit of it!

I'm buying a NiCad in the morning.

Has anyone else suffered the same problems? Or is there some strange incantations that I have to mutter while sacrificing one of the many Hull virgins to get it to work.

[jackalope]

If it is a lipo it sounds like you discharged it all the way which will kill them. If your tank came with a lipo then the tank SHOULD also have come with battery run down alarm or protection. If it did then you're going to want to find out how to shut that off if you go to an old nicad battery because the protection will shut the tank off only after a few minutes of run time due to the difference in discharge rates between lipo and nicad batteries.

[ausf]

Lipos are toast if they get to 3 volts per cell. But I doubt you have a lipo since your house would be toast if it was left on a charger for 9 hours.

A multimeter would tell you exactly what's going on with the battery, but if you are sticking with the hobby, you should think about a getting a charger, not the wall unit type.

[wibblywobbly]

The HL's come with Lithium Ion batteries, rather than Lithium Polymer. They apparently have a 15 minute run time, so no improvement over the 2000 Nimh batteries that they supplied previously. They aren't Lithium Polymer (Lipo) so no need to worry about the charger or charging time.

If you have a multimeter charge the battery and check the voltage. It should be 8v+. Run the tank until it stops and check it again, it should drop to around 6v.

If the freshly charged battery is 6v-7.5v then the battery charger isn't charging.
If the freshly charged battery is 6v then the battery isn't taking a charge.
If the freshly charged battery is 8v+ and the tank doesn't run, or stops after a short run, eg it drops to 6v rapidly, then the battery is AWOL.

If you want a decent run time at minimal cost I would recommend a Vapextech 3700 Nimh battery, and a peak detect battery charger that will charge at 4 amps. That way you get a good run time and a fast recharge. 4 amps will charge the battery in about 30 minutes, and the peak detect means that you can leave it, it won't overcharge, it will drop back to a trickle charge when the battery is fully charged. If you get two batteries then you can always swap them over and charge one whilst running the other. Avoid the bargain priced Nimh batteries off Ebay, I and others have learnt to our cost that they are not what they say on the label and are a waste of good money.

[DRC]

After posting the topic I dropped in an old 1700 Nimh that I had been using to test my £10 Ebay Bulldog. The Challenger happily ran figure of eights around the living room for a further 15 minutes before becoming unresponsive and shutting down. No alarms, no bells and whistles just the usual when a battery dies in the tank. The dud battery label claims it to be 'Super Li-ion Battery 7.4 v/1800mAh'.

I'm not very impressed and I'll be using the my old rewired 4700s from now on.